


to have a heart of gold

by shineyma



Series: complications [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 11:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13317171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Grant leads a rescue mission and maybe loses his mind a little.





	to have a heart of gold

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da! Four million years later, I return with another part to this series. I hope it doesn't disappoint!
> 
> Thanks very much for reading, and please be gentle if you review! <3

“Damn,” Ortilla says, cutting through the silence with a low whistle. “Didn’t think SHIELD could do vicious. Ain’t that against your rules or something?”

It’s a pretty gruesome scene, Grant’ll admit. Killing these bastards isn’t helping calm him down the way it usually would; each room they find full of enemy agents and empty of his son only compounds his temper—and then one of the scum-sucking bottom feeders went and made a _comment_ about Zachary, calling him a crybaby and implying it took force to shut him up.

Grant maybe lost his mind for a second there.

“Yeah, well.” Said scum-sucking bottom feeder is sprawled at his feet and not _quite_ dead yet; the face stomp Grant gives him is half to fix that problem and half pure fury. “I’m not SHIELD.”

May cuts him a sharp look, but doesn’t say anything. She hasn’t said anything in hours, actually (aside from a sharp _Ward_ that recalled him to himself after he slaughtered everyone in this room), which he’s pretty sure is less to do with her taciturn nature than it is the fact she knows she’s not exactly among friends.

His old recruits may or may not resent him for the whole betrayal thing, but they at least _know_ him, and they’ve got enough lingering loyalty in them to take his orders again. May, on the other hand, is nothing but the enemy—at least as far as they’re concerned.

He might’ve agreed with them as recently as a few hours ago, but…she’s _here_. She walked into dangerous, unknown territory with a crew she has excellent reason to distrust, and it’s not because Coulson ordered her to. It’s because of _him_ , because they’re a team; she’s putting herself at risk because she doesn’t trust Jemma’s people to watch his back any more than she trusts them to watch _hers_.

Grant…really doesn’t know how to feel about that. And this isn’t the place for soul-searching, anyway.

“SHIELD enough to spy on us,” Hicks points out, very casually—more an observation than an accusation.

“Sure,” Grant says. “Just not SHIELD enough for them to tell me about my son.”

Ortilla and Hicks exchange a look at that, but before either of them can comment, the door at the other end of the room slides open.

“Heard from the other teams,” Aldridge reports, not even blinking at the guns they’ve all spun to raise in her direction. “The west end and the north wing are clear. Just the basement left.”

“Good.” Grant gives the bastard on the floor another kick, just for the hell of it. He’s definitely dead now. “Let’s go.”

 

+++

 

Unfortunately, _basement_ is a kinda misleading thing to call the subterranean level. The word basement draws up images of a little suburban rec room, extra storage for the busy middle-class family…nothing at all like the sprawling maze of halls beneath this godforsaken base.

He had a good long time to study the blueprints on the flight over, so he knows what he’s walking into. That doesn’t make stepping out of the stairwell into an exact copy of the ground level—the ground level it took _hours_ to clear, that was full of countless nooks and crannies his son could’ve been (but _wasn’t_ ) stashed in—piss him off any less.

Lucky for him—but not for them—there are plenty of targets to aim his fury at.

“Ew,” Aldridge says, delicately wiping a bit of grey matter off her face. “Could you aim for center mass, maybe, sir?”

A center mass shot’s too clean—too _easy_ for these suicidal, thrice-damned _motherfuckers_ who kidnapped his son.

“No,” he says, and moves on.

“You could at least wait until I’m not standing next to them,” she mutters at his back.

“Since when are you squeamish?” Hicks asks.

“Yeah, suck it up,” Ortilla says.

“ _You_ suck it up,” she retorts. “Do you know how much this foundation costs?”

Grant lets it fade into white noise. After the months he’s spent with the team, the steady stream of complaints is almost reassuring. Skye and Fitz are just as bad for whining in the field, and they’re less irritating than Kernighan was. Add in May’s silent defense behind him…it could be just another mission. One of Coulson’s wild goose chases, where the only people in danger are civilians he doesn’t care about—certainly not his innocent, defenseless son.

He almost regrets it when they have to split up.

“May and I’ll take this wing,” he says. “You three take the other. Same as before.”

The _same as before_ refers to their standing orders—kill all of these bastards with extreme prejudice; contact Grant immediately if they find Zachary—not the way he’s arranged their teams. Upstairs, it was an even split: the three of them on one team and Grant, May, and Markham on another. With Markham off delivering Lundholm into Jemma’s less-than-tender mercies, that leaves Grant and May. He can see it sits uneasily on Hicks, Ortilla, and Aldridge, just as uneasily as it sat on Markham earlier.

(He actually put up a fight about it, stunning Grant, but _somebody_ had to take Lundholm—the mastermind behind Zachary’s kidnapping and the ringleader of this little band—back to Jemma for his rightful punishment. Grant wasn’t about to leave without his son, and it couldn’t be May; she’d have just taken the guy to SHIELD, who would barely hurt him at all. So Markham, unhappily, went.)

Faced with the scope of the basement, Grant’s not in the mood to argue this _again_. He starts down the hall before Hicks can open his mouth and ignores the discontented muttering he leaves in his wake.

 

+++

 

They clear six rooms (and Grant shoots another three guys in the face, as well as sending a fourth head-first through an observation window) before May speaks.

“Not SHIELD, huh?” she asks casually. She could be commenting on the weather, if May ever did anything that inane.

Grant pauses to change out his magazine. He doesn’t let his hands shake. “Not anymore.”

“Hmm.” May does another visual sweep of the room. It’s empty; just them and the corpses. No Zachary. “Coulson’s not gonna be able to talk you into handing Lundholm over.”

It’s not a question.

“No,” he agrees. “You gonna try?”

She gives him a look so heavy with disbelief that it almost makes him smile.

He didn’t figure she would. If she had a problem with Jemma slowly torturing Lundholm to death, she’d have said something before they sent him off with Markham. May gets where he’s coming from—at least a little.

It means more to him than it should.

But this isn’t the moment for emotional conversations, not that May—or Grant for that matter—is given to them anyway. So he restricts himself to a simple, “Thanks,” May nods, and they continue their hunt.

 

+++

 

Three halls and fourteen rooms later, they find Zachary, and for a heartbeat Grant can’t even breathe for sheer relief.

Then he takes in the bruises marring his son’s face, and he can’t breathe for a whole other reason. He can’t speak, either, can barely even _see_ past pure, incandescent _rage_ —

And then Zachary demands, voice quavering, “What do you want?”

Grant forces himself to take one breath, then another, and then his training belatedly kicks in. Trusting May to watch his back, he holsters his gun and crouches to put himself on Zachary’s level. (Not an easy task, with Zachary tucked back into the corner the way he is. There’s no furniture in the room, not even a tiny scrap of comfort for Grant’s bruised and bleeding five-year-old son, and if he hadn’t already killed everyone he could find…)

“Hi, Zachary,” he says, feigning calm. “My name’s Grant. Your mom sent me to bring you home.”

He wants so badly to introduce himself as Zachary’s father. He wants it more than he’s ever wanted _anything_ , with a burning intensity that nearly overwhelms him, but it’s just not the right time. His son’s been kidnapped and beaten and probably traumatized; it would be unbelievably selfish of Grant to just drop the fact of a new parent on him out of nowhere.

…To say nothing of the fact that Zachary may not even believe him. This is a revelation that needs to come from Jemma, not Grant. So as much as he hates it, he’s gotta wait.

Zachary scowls—an expression so familiar that Grant’s breath catches again. He’s only seen that look in the mirror before.

“Why’d Mummy send _you_?” Zachary asks suspiciously. “I don’t know you.”

He’s not gonna lie. That hurts.

Still, he can’t help but approve of the suspicion, even as he wishes…

“She sent a lot of people,” he says, pushing those thoughts away. “I just happened to get here first.”

He’s about to order May to radio one of the others, get a familiar face in here, but for all his caution, Zachary’s still just a little kid. The simple explanation is all it takes to ease his suspicion, and his wary expression melts away into a tearful kind of exhaustion that stabs at Grant’s heart.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Can we go home now?”

“Yeah, buddy.” Grant’s voice comes out rougher than Zachary’s; he swallows, forces the tattered shreds of his composure back together, and tries again. “Yeah. Are you hurt? You want me to carry you?”

“Uh uh,” he says, and scrambles to his feet. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?” Grant asks. He wants to pick him up anyway, for reasons he can’t even explain to himself. It’s just… _wrong_ to let his son walk out of here on his own two feet. “You’re looking pretty rough.”

“I’m okay,” Zachary insists.

“Okay,” he says, straightening. Still, if he can’t carry him… “Only, it’s a little scary out there, and I don’t wanna get lost. Do you think I could hold your hand?”

For this, Zachary doesn’t even hesitate. The second Grant offers his hand, he latches right on.

His hand’s tiny. Soft and breakable and so fucking _small_ —and unfamiliar. Zachary’s five years old and this is the first time Grant’s ever touched him, thanks to SHIELD. If they hadn’t kept this fucking secret, compartmentalized Grant’s own goddamn _son_ , Grant could’ve held him when he was a baby. Could’ve been there to rock him to sleep, watch him take his first steps, help—

“They killed Susie,” Zachary says, very quietly, and it cuts through Grant’s rage like nothing ever has.

“I know,” he says heavily. _Susie_ was Susan Cross, the nanny who died trying to defend Zachary from his kidnappers, and Grant knows a lot more than that. He knows Jemma hired her before Zachary was even born. He knows there’s a drawing on the wall in Zachary’s room, carefully labeled “Susie and Me” with two backward e’s.

He knows she helped Jemma raise Zachary, that Zachary’s known her his whole life—and that Zachary had to watch her die.

“I’m sorry, buddy.”

Zachary sniffles and clings a little harder to his hand. “Mummy’s gonna make _them_ sorry.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “She really, really is.”

His son nods firmly, like the assurance that Jemma’s gonna dole out some pain is all it takes to make everything right in his world, and Grant has to look away from the assurance on his bruised little face. His eyes land on May, still standing guard at the door.

She flicks a glance at him, sensing his gaze, and then returns her attention to the hall.

“May,” he says, “I’m gonna get Zachary out of here. Why don’t you go find Ortilla and co, let them know I’ve got him?”

_That_ gets her to turn and face him fully. Grant can’t help the way he tenses, because he’s just not sure how this is gonna go.

They’ve both got comms. She could—hell, _he_ could—easily radio the others to let them know they’ve found Zachary, safe and mostly sound. He’s telling her to leave so he can ditch her, and she knows it. Moreover, she knows exactly why: because he’s about to go way off book.

SHIELD doesn’t want Zachary returned to Jemma. Their orders were very clear about that: he’s to be brought directly to the London field office, preferably without even letting Jemma know he’s been found.

Whether that’s because they intend to use him as leverage against her or if they’re just finally acting to get an innocent child away from his unsuitable (by their reckoning) mother, Grant doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He never had any intention of taking Zachary anywhere but right back to Jemma.

The question is, will May let him get away with it? She’s supported him this far, but now that Zachary’s safe…

After a long, tense moment, May nods. “Be careful on your way out. Watch your back.”

The weight she puts on the second sentence tells him more than words ever could. She knows exactly what he’s planning, and whether she approves or not, she’s not gonna interfere.

“Thanks,” he says. “You too.”

He leads Zachary out of the room and silently hands May his SHIELD badge as they pass her. She accepts it without comment, touches his arm—in farewell, he thinks—and then turns and walks away, heading further into the complex.

Her easy acceptance is more than just a relief, but Grant’s in no mood to examine why. Instead, he looks down at Zachary, the better to get his focus back on the mission at hand.

“You ready to go?”

“Yes, please,” Zachary says, and the misery in his little voice almost makes Grant wish there were more people at hand to shoot. ( _Almost_. The last thing he actually wants is _more_ enemy combatants any-fucking-where _near_ his son.) “’Cept…”

Grant’s heart misses a beat. “Except what? Is something wrong?”

Zachary shakes his head and then, after a worrying pause, lets go of Grant’s hand and lifts both arms in a silent request to be picked up. The gesture plus his expression—an exact mirror of the one Jemma wears when she knows she’s contradicted herself and is just _daring_ someone to point it out—hits Grant hard in the sternum, leaving a melty kind of warmth in its wake.

It’s like being punched with a kitten or something.

“Please,” Zachary says politely.

“Sure thing,” Grant says, and picks him up.

He’s heavier than he looks—a real, solid weight, where Grant half expected…he doesn’t know what he expected, actually. Not this, for sure; not the reality of little arms too tight around his neck and a little knee digging into a half-healed wound in his side and a little face against his shoulder, dampness that could be tears or blood or both seeping through his shirt in seconds.

Grant swallows down the lump in his throat and holds his son close, wishing this wasn’t the first time. Wishing they’d met any way other than this, with Zachary hurt and scared and traumatized.

He wishes he could tell Zachary exactly who he is. Hell, he wishes Zachary already _knew_.

But if wishes were horses and all that. No point in dwelling on what isn’t.

“Come on,” he says, and turns towards the exit. “Let’s get you back to your mom.”

 

+++

 

Jemma cries when she sees Zachary. Just falls to her knees right there on the landing pad, wraps her arms around him, and _sobs_. The fact that SHIELD would’ve denied her this, would’ve prevented this reunion at all costs…if he’d had any doubts about his chosen course of action, the sight of Jemma clinging to their son would’ve wiped them right out.

As it is, he doesn’t have a single one.

Markham’s hanging back at the edge of the landing pad, studying Grant with a sharp eye.

“Lost your friend?” he asks.

“Left her behind,” Grant corrects, and does a quick scan of the area. “Skye leave?”

“Just after we did, according to Warrington,” Markham confirms.

Yeah. Grant pretty much expected that. SHIELD wasn’t counting on any agents coming back here.

“Pack it in,” he orders. “It’s time to go.”

In response, Markham—annoyingly, if understandably—only glances at Jemma.

…Who quickly proves that she’s perfectly capable of crying her eyes out and eavesdropping at the same time. “Do it.”

“Destination?” Markham asks, even as he unlocks his phone.

Jemma shrugs, plainly disinterested in anything that’s not holding Zachary as tight as she possibly can.

“Hong Kong,” Grant says. The field office there was devastated by Chan back in October, and SHIELD’s yet to reestablish its presence. It’s as good a place as any to start.

Markham nods and makes the call, sounding the alarm that will get Jemma’s very well-trained people moving. The entire site can be packed up in an hour—less if they leave nonessential personnel behind.

Grant leaves him to it and takes the final few steps to crouch next to Jemma. Their son’s slumped against her, half-asleep if not fully, and she’s swaying gently back and forth, rubbing slow circles on his back.

It’s a toss-up which of them she’s trying to soothe.

“So,” she says, without looking at Grant. “You’re staying?”

“Looks like,” Grant says, and refuses to feel a pang of regret over what he’s leaving behind. SHIELD kept this from him…and so did John. All the pies John’s got fingers in, all the trouble he goes to to stay connected, there’s no way John didn’t know about Zachary.

Grant would’ve given his life for John—would’ve given his _freedom_ , even. But he never agreed to sacrifice his son.

John turned his back on him first. Grant’s just returning the favor.

“So,” he says, firmly shutting a door on that train of thought. “Am I worthy?”

The reference to the conversation they had before he left makes her smile, if only a bit, and she finally raises her eyes to meet his.

“Looks like,” she echoes quietly.


End file.
